Airbnb tries to slime Boston city councilor instead of discussing its role in destroying entire neighborhoods

Airbnb is making it clear this week that not only does it oppose efforts by city councilors to regulate the apartments and condos it advertises, it will take the low road to do it.

In e-mail to its "friends," the company writes:

Boston City Councilor Michelle Wu has a proposal that would place unreasonable restrictions on home sharing in the city and we need your help to stop it. She has aligned with big hotel interests against the interests of regular Bostonians.

The e-mail continues the companies set up an online tool for sending pre-written complaints to city councilors and Mayor Walsh

The company claims the proof that Wu is in bed with Big Hotel is that her proposal (which City Councilor Lydia Edwards is also working on) would bar renters from subletting their units to Airbnb customers, would bar individuals from staying more than 30 days in a unit and would probably be worse for your privacy than even a poll on Facebook by requiring owners of Airbnb units to notify their neighbors and supply information to the city - although much of the information, including rental prices, would have to be supplied by Airbnb to the city, not by the unit owners.

Airbnb does not point to a large influx of campaign cash from Big Hotel to Wu, probably because state campaign-finance records show no such thing in 2018. It also doesn't note that Wu has proposed banning investor-owned units from the rental-share market completely, possibly because that would not fit in with Airbnb's alleged theory that Wu is going after the little guy.

Wu and Edwards, and before them, Sal LaMattina, argued that an unfettered room-share market in Boston is making it more and more difficult for actual Bostonians to stay in the city, as investors buy up entire buildings to rent out on Airbnb and similar platforms.

The complete Airbnb e-mail follows:

Hi [Recipient name],
Boston City Councilor Michelle Wu has a proposal that would place unreasonable restrictions on home sharing in the city and we need your help to stop it. She has aligned with big hotel interests against the interests of regular Bostonians. Will you use our speakout tool and send an email to Mayor Walsh and City Council today asking them to support responsible home sharing in Boston?

Send an email

The Wu proposal would place unnecessary restrictions on home sharing by:

• Placing a restrictive 30-day cap on unhosted stays.
• Prohibiting renters from sharing their homes, something not done anywhere else in the United States.
• Requiring notification of neighbors and that platforms like Airbnb collect and share an invasive amount of personal information putting your privacy at risk.

We know that when the collective voice of the Airbnb community is heard by lawmakers, we can stop restrictive and unnecessary laws like this from passing. That’s why sending an email to the Boston City Council today is so important.

Thanks,
The Airbnb Team
Sent with [love] from
Airbnb, Inc.
888 Brannan Street, San Francisco, CA 94103

Is it true hotels are who she's aligned her interests with? I think she's aligned her interests with renters and people who want to be homeowners, not hotels. Permanent residents don't move to hotels to stop paying 50% of income on rent.

A study released in 2016 by Keren Horn and Mark Merante found that Airbnb had a direct impact on increased housing prices in Boston:

Perhaps you can add some aerial photographs of the devastation wrought by Airbnb's bombardment of the city. Surely if entire neighborhoods are literally being destroyed you should be able to show some evidence.

Who are in danger of losing their jobs as the hotels are no longer in such demand. Hotel workers are not only losing their jobs or having their hours cut, they are being forced out of their neighborhoods, from Chinatown to Eastie to Dorchester, because they can't afford the rents. Some who testified at the City Council hearing on AirBnb regulations said they had lost their apartments to AirBnbs.

How about losing your job AND your housing to the same enterprise, huh? I'm glad Wu and Edwards are advocating for a solution that would help protect these people. If that's aligning with the hotel industry, I'm all for it. And we also heard at that hearing that the AirBnb renters who were present admitted paying much less to their cleaners: minimum wage and part-time, so no benefits.

Then they can come live in Brighton, where they're building new homes left and right. I've done my job. I didn't sign the petition when a lady came to my door asking me to oppose Market and Saybrook.

Also, the hotel buildings aren't disappearing into thin air. Perhaps hoteliers should start renting hotel rooms to permanent residents, since it was clear through decades of high prices that they weren't interested in charging what a truly free market would bear for lodging.

Using workers as a token to prop up a corporation is heinous. Using workers as a token to bar non-dedicated hotel property investors from seeking a return on their investment is even worse.

How you can argue that people who are being priced out of lower cost neighborhoods could possibly move into Brighton. I have a good feeling I make more than a hotel worker and I couldn't even do that right now.

I see the issue more about the lack of regulation on AirBnB. AirBnB has no incentive to make any changes to the market in general. It has incentive to make money. But that doesn't mean that the State/City can't move to regulate what people can do with their assets if they want to use AirBnB to do it. I don't even think AirBnB has to be a party in that conversation. It only affects how people use AirBnB. The service is still there for people who have extra rooms to rent out.

But I don't know why you'd move people into hotels, or how that would be a viable solution.

How you can argue that people who are being priced out of lower cost neighborhoods could possibly move into Brighton. I have a good feeling I make more than a hotel worker and I couldn't even do that right now.

No? I see several rooms around $800 a month on Craigslist.

I see the issue more about the lack of regulation on AirBnB. AirBnB has no incentive to make any changes to the market in general. It has incentive to make money

I mean, yeah?

But that doesn't mean that the State/City can't move to regulate what people can do with their assets if they want to use AirBnB to do it.

You cited the rule of law. Put a dollar in the jar.

But I don't know why you'd move people into hotels, or how that would be a viable solution.

Because you can? There's a finite number of visitors to Boston. Maybe if hotels lose enough business to AirBnb, they can lease their existing spaces to residents.

You literally brought up that $800 a month thing as a counterpoint to someone saying that Brighton wasn't affordable to live in for a hotel worker. You changed the goal post after someone called you on it.

So you did offer $800 as reasonable rent in Boston. Because two posts ago, you said you didn't do that. Now it's time to kick the field goal, can you decide on a goalpost placement or would you like to move it around again?

Lyft and Uber came into being as a direct response to government having created an artificial scarcity of taxis, which resulted in a net transfer of value from taxi customers and drivers into the hands of the bankers who financed the $1M cost of a medallion. AirBnB came into being as a response to market forces that were less cynically created.

Agreed. I would take to the streets if Boston tried to kick out Uber/Lyft.

We're not NYC- Boston has never had enough taxis to meet demand. Not to mention all the territory disputes among cabs, so that Cambridge cabs can only take fares originating in Cambridge. And their "broken" meters, having to call dispatch to schedule a ride that will hopefully come get you and not pick up a closer fare first, inability to track or know the name of who's picking you up, smelly cars... I could go on and on. What a joke.

Every national business that operates across the nation has to deal with local regulations, ranging from locality to state. This is normal for a society that ideally spreads power to many rather than concentrating power in just a few hands.

There are folks who want to eliminate the sources of power that can interfere with their conduct. How else can they act as monopolies, duopolies and oligarchs?

I have no sympathy for the people running a national corporation that has to deal with local regulations. They made the choice to operate in that environment.

"Sharing" is when you let someone you know stay at your place, probably when you are also at home. Where Airbnb makes its real money, and what the Council is trying to contain, is the shadow hotel business.

And if they do it, its a long arduous process to evict. In fact, almost all leases have subletting rules, and just look at the existing laws for breaking a lease in MA - you can find a new tenant/sublet, but the landlord still has to agree/screen and find them acceptable. I mean, its basically running a boarding house/illegal hotel which can also be against mortgage terms (such as anything under the FHA), too.

I'm sure Airbnb is not the only factor in these neighborhoods being destroyed. I mean the many many years of gentrification and loss of affordable housing would in my opinion be way more detrimental than airbnb

In many neighborhoods, entire apartment buildings are being converted to Airbnbs, driving up the rental and condo markets even higher than "gentrification." They are spreading faster into formerly "affordable" neighborhoods like East Boston and Dorchester. Every Airbnb unit robs that neighborhood of a permanent single resident, couple, or family. It adds up.

Walsh is stalling on regulation because his rich pals (such as Sandra Edgerly & co.) are pressuring him. Edwards and Wu's proposal is excellent: fair to individual homeowners who want extra income, while protecting neighbors, and whole neighborhoods, from large-scale investors who ignore residential zoning and turn housing into hotel rooms. They worked with a lot of neighborhood groups to get it right. However, we also have councillors like Baker and Flynn, who either don't or won't get it — because they're not very bright, are inside someone's pocket, or both.

Just taking a quick look at the map and it has some issues. In the North End alone, it shows 4 units in the Coast Guard station, one at the adjacent pool and one in the ice rink down the street. Not sure how the map was generated but it doesn’t look right.

Many posters on the AirBnB site do not put actual address into the system so that they can not be readily found out by IRS, unit owners, or condo associations or other persons who would not be happy to learn their "neighbor" was using a unit in their building for short terming.

If you're attempting to buy a condo that you plan to live in, it's hard to compete with companies that buy them as investments to rent short term like Airbnb - can make more money than having fixed annual tenants. They can pay cash, no restrictions, etc. This in turn drives up the comps for the area, raising the "worth" of the rest of the available stock. This is one of the listed reasons they're trying to regulate this unregulated rental market.

The problem isn't AirBnB specifically, it's that the property is worth a lot more as a short-term rental than it is as a family dwelling unit. And a lot of the land is more valuable as a place to build office towers than it is as a place to build houses. Sometimes the people of a city find that policy objectives (such as, for example, "we want to have a residential downtown" require limiting the otherwise free market, which is what Boston did. I personally think it worked well. The free market is generally a good thing, but it isn't to be worshiped slavishly at the cost of everything else.

There is a huge hole in all these regulations in that they attack technology but not the action. I have friends who literally will use Air Bnb to rent places for 3 months to 2 years at a time. They work on projects that bring them to different places and it used to be very hard for them to get places to stay, now they love Air Bnb. How is that any different than using a real estate agent to facilitate the rentals instead?

What seems to be missing from these items is the concept of time on the other side of the dice. If they are not careful they could make it illegal to rent via electronic medium completely. They could put immigrants who just need a place for 9 months out of luck.

Forget about big hotel, this benefits real estate agents if it is followed through fully. As it will make anything short of a standard 1 year lease via a real estate agent suspect.

I know this is not what the Councillor wants but by focusing on the brand and the technology they run the risk of creating this problem when in reality ANYONE who rents their home out in mini increments should be treated the same way. They need to look at PTown to see how to do it.

If you read what I wrote you would have seen that I said I am sure that is not what she wants... but I have looked at the information available to me and this is what I see. Laws are not written for short periods of time, they will still be there when Michelle Wu is gone. They will still be there when some board is trying to figure out what the rules are and suddenly decide you can't post room mate vacancies on Facebook anymore.

This is like being mad someone is using Kleenex to clean the dishes in the kitchen so you regulate Kleenex across the whole apartment. When I go to wipe my nose with a Kleenex in the bathroom I could be breaking the rule... meanwhile my room mate bought generic store brand one time use hand tissues and is now using those to clean the dishes.

My request with this short term rental thing is:
Time tables be determined
Definition beyond "Air bnb" be used

The reason people are also going after the technology is they don't want ANY short termers near them - and that definition is very loose. It doesn't matter if it's a revolving door of AirBnB guests, some student who is still driving a car with CT plates and is there for 1-4 years, or a renter who has been there for 10 years. People who are owner occupants want their buildings and neighborhoods to be owner occupied in full or at least well over 50%.

Airbnb sent an email to their customers who live in Boston (not just people who list their properties but people who used an Airbnb in Hawaii once) and made a false claim about Michelle Wu proposed regulations. City Councilors Wu and Lydia and Ed and Josh back affordable rent and home ownership. This study shows how short term rental market is driving up rent and housing.

The email points out 3 specific claims about the ordinance:
1) That people won't be able to rent for longer than 30 days at a stretch
2) That only homeowners can rent space
3) That abutters will have to be notified

My read of the ordinance is that these are factually correct.

So what are the false claims? What am I missing? You just link to the ordinance and make a blanket statement, and point me to studies that argue that short term housing drives up costs.

I just want to know which of these specific claims are wrong about the actual ordinance.

Boston City Councilor Michelle Wu has a proposal that would place unreasonable restrictions on home sharing in the city and we need your help to stop it. She has aligned with big hotel interests against the interests of regular Bostonians.

Saying she is unaligned with the interests of regular Bostonians is laughable to anyone who is familiar with Wu. It's trying to frame her in a very dishonest way. It also doesn't say outright that she actively sided with hotels, but it's essentially implying that she's being lobbied by them, and successfully. There's room for imagination in the way that they wrote it and they knew exactly what they were trying to accomplish with that.

These requirements are reasonable. If a person has to rent a short term for 30 days there are plenty of other options. I can speak to experience concerning that issue. This applies a disincentive to turn housing into what in effect is a hotel. If a person wants to run a hotel or B&B then they are welcome to go through the same steps that every other B&B and hotel operator goes through, including paying the same taxes - which benefits us, the resident of the city.

I don't want to live next to an apartment building which is operating as effectively a B&B. I want stable neighbors; not people who come and go without committing anything to making the area one they enjoy living in. I don't write as abutter but as a neighbor. If the unit is in a large condo building however I can see notifying abutters. Knowing that a nearby unit is used for temporary residences let's closely residing neighbors know that the people who are coming and going have less interest in taking care of the unit they are temporarily living in. It also lets residents know to be more on guard. I am less trustful of a situation where there are temporary occupants than where there are permanent neighbors.

As for short term costs how can this not increase short term costs? Basic capitalism: supply and demand. If the supply of permanent housing decreases while the demand remains the same or increase then the monetary value of the supply will inevitably increase as the people seeking the permanent housing are more willing. As a study pointing out that principle I offer capitalism in the United States.

This is good example of how organized crime will use unregulated temporary housing. Airbnb's should be taxed and heavily regulated - Wu does not go far enough IMO. There are good reasons for zoning laws, people just forgot about them. I have 0 sympathy for people who airbnb their units and get heavily taxed - they should get taxed. Hotels are not supposed to be in residential neighborhoods.

Airbnb does not point to a large influx of campaign cash from Big Hotel to Wu, probably because state campaign-finance records show no such thing in 2018. It also doesn't note that Wu has proposed banning investor-owned units from the rental-share market completely, possibly because that would not fit in with Airbnb's alleged theory that Wu is going after the little guy.